


Ash and Fruit

by rosncrntz



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Arguing, Lascelles just wants to be a vampire victim, Longing, M/M, Magic Lessons, Vampire!Childermass, enemies to greater enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosncrntz/pseuds/rosncrntz
Summary: Lascelles had never heard such nonsense. Vampires. What a terrible thought. What a terrible temptation.
Relationships: John Childermass & Henry Lascelles, John Childermass/Henry Lascelles
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Ash and Fruit

Henry Lascelles was now quite convinced that he had heard it all.  
  
“Vampires?”  
  
Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange, who had almost forgotten the presence of the lithe gentleman stretched thinly on the armchair beside the window, turned incredulously in his direction and cast a sceptical eye on he who had interrupted their studies. Said eavesdropper appeared ignorant of his scholarly indiscretion, and gave a frivolous laugh, as if they would both join in and all of them together would laugh such silliness right out of the room. This did not happen. Anxious to teach his pupil and not the sniggering eavesdropper, Mr Norrell cleared his throat and, entirely in the direction of the young Mr Strange, said, “I do not know, Mr Strange, where you have encountered these references, but I do doubt that there is much truth in the claims. There is no such stuff in Ormskirk, nor any of the books in my library, I assure you.”  
  
“Ah, but there I am afraid you are mistaken, Mr Norrell. You see, I have it written down here - oh, let me see,” Mr Strange stopped to bustle through a stack of scrawled notations before leaping to his feet with some considerable chaos in him, “Yes! Here, look, ‘Arpel’s Handbook to the Magic of Tintern Abbey’!” Strange glowed proudly. “A book you have more than once spoken highly of, if I remember correctly!” Lascelles, being his only audience, received a rather smug peacock grin from Stange.  
  
“In Arpel’s? Did you note a page number?” Mr Norrell huffed, taking his ladder with the express purpose of pulling Arpel’s down from the shelf to disprove his precocious student and all this talk of ungentlemanly, unfortunate magic.  
  
“Well, no,” Strange replied sheepishly, “But I do remember what I think he called ‘blood-runners’?”  
  
“Vampires?” Lascelles repeated, perhaps more forcefully than before, having listened to this scholarly exchange with more than a little disbelief and rather a lot of impatience. Disbelief partially on the revelation of vampires, but in the most part owing to these two gentlemen who - in the face of such knowledge - were debating the prudence of pagination! “Did you say vampires?”  
  
“No! I said ‘blood-runners’, didn’t I? Please, Mr Lascelles, if you insist on interrupting us then please do try to listen more closely!” Strange snapped, irascibly (Mr Lascelles had struck a nerve earlier that week when he had dipped uninvited fingers into Mr Strange’s bowl of lemon drops and Mr Strange, in truth, was having a difficult time forgiving or forgetting). Supressing a scowl, Lascelles, tending to a pride slightly bruised, focused on the elder gentleman for confirmation of this strange story, watching as Mr Norrell began to scour his copy of Arpel’s with a deeply furrowed brow.  
  
“I really don’t think there is any such thing, Mr Strange,” was Mr Norrell’s response, half-heartedly scanning the pages, close to giving up his search, “Really, I do think-”  
  
“Blood-letters.”  
  
Gilbert Norrell, Jonathan Strange, and Henry Lascelles had almost forgotten the presence of the second audience member to this morning’s lesson. One John Childermass who, as was his custom, sat writing at his small desk in the corner and made not a peep until Mr Norrell called on him. Or, in this case, made not a peep until he heard someone making a mistake. The croak of his voice was like raven call, quiet as if distant but close enough to unsettle.  
  
“What’s that, Childermass?” Norrell asked.  
  
“Arpel calls them ‘blood-letters’.”  
  
“Thank you, Childermass!” a triumphant Mr Strange cried out with a proud gesticulation of his arms, “Of course. They let blood. you see. Like leeches, only men. You see? I _was_ right!”  
  
“When have you been reading Arpel?” Norrell replied, incredulously, to the subtle roll of his henchman’s eyes and the distemper of his ignored pupil.  
  
“I was here when Strange read it.”  
  
“Yes! – wait, what? – you were?” Strange cried.  
  
“I was. Mr Strange forgot to write it down and when he left the room, I checked it. Page four-hundred and thirteen.”

“Ah. Well. Thank you, Mr Childermass,” Strange prickled. In truth, Mr Strange’s pride, only a few moments ago as puffed and proud as the moon itself, was now a little wounded by Mr Childermass’ memory and attention to study being superior to his. But, once Mr Norrell had discovered the page and the chapter of discussion Arpel gives to these strange creatures, his feelings of pride were beginning to rekindle. Meanwhile, Mr Norrell’s feelings were anxious and cold. And, beyond them, Mr Henry Lascelles’ feelings were rather thrilled.  
  
Not entirely pleasantly: offended by the rashness of the manservant, and on the part of these vampires his feelings were half-fear, mostly doubt, but undeniably curious. To be the right-hand man to a magician was the highest position in England, it seemed, but to be in the company of a vampire – what a strange thing that would be! His blood almost burned at the thought of it and, in a sudden flash of fancy, he could have sworn he felt the cold sharp pinpricks of fangs pressing into the curve of his neck...  
  
It was from these dark fantasies that Mr Childermass pulled Mr Lascelles from. Mr Norrell had escorted Mr Strange from the room for a moment, swearing that, in the adjacent sitting room, he had a book on a surplus shelf which could categorically dispute Arpel’s nonsense claims and, in his master’s absence, Childermass had taken to leaning against the wall beside a window only a few feet distant from Mr Lascelles himself. The way he presented himself, languid and callous, surveying the street outside the window, with not a single thought for the gentleman still in the room, or the dirt on the jacket of his coat which was scuffing against the paintwork, was, to Mr Lascelles, entirely and completely unacceptable.  
  
It was, quite simply, blood-curdling.  
  
“I don’t see what business you have correcting Mr Strange like that,” Mr Lascelles blurted. In truth, though the general attitude of the man irritated him, he had not a leg to stand on with any other accusation he could make against the fellow’s gait, stance, or appearance. So, therefore, this defence of Mr Strange (however much the precocious young magician irked him too) was a good enough complaint to level, if only to make a jab at Childermass.  
  
“I do not think I was correcting him,” Childermass replied, cooly, “I was helping him.”  
  
“Oh, please,” was Mr Lascelles’ rather pathetic response.  
  
“Mr Strange wished to know the page. I supplied it. Isn’t that my job?”  
  
“Your job-!” Mr Lascelles was about to hiss that it was Childermass’ job to take orders, to do as he is told, to be silent unless spoken to and to always remember his place: his place markedly below him. But the sudden creak of the door and the hasty entrance of Mr Strange silenced Lascelles and, rather sheepishly, he pretended to be minding his own business (and not the manservant’s) whilst Mr Strange walked to the table and began to filter through books again. ‘Minding his own business’, in his panic, became an intense fascination with the fabric of the armchair, which he picked at with interested fingers and hummed at in an interested tone. Mr Strange, having found the particular book he was looking for, looked up, noticed the strange tension between the two gentleman in the room, and Mr Lascelles’ strange interest in upholstery, decided it easier to ignore both, and curtly said “Gentlemen,” before leaving the room.  
  
There followed a heavy silence between the pair. Their relationship had, in recent weeks, grown more strained than it had perhaps ever been before and, even at the best of times, one could not say that Mr Lascelles and Mr Childermass were the best of friends.  
  
Mr Childermass wished to return to his spot at the window and be left in peace and, indeed, he managed to enjoy a few moments of uninterrupted autonomy before Mr Lascelles, again, drew attention, “I do not see why you were so interested in Mr Strange’s reading in the first place.”  
  
Mr Childermass turned his head down so he could roll his eyes in enough shadow to mask it.  
  
“Mr Strange, you know, does have the unfortunate habit of talking aloud as he works. Must be used to his wife.”  
  
“And you felt compelled to listen?”  
  
“You felt compelled to listen today,” Mr Childermass returned, with an unusual amount of vitriol, just quiet enough in his voice to go unnoticed by another man, but Lascelles heard it in his tone like a thunder. “Who can resist listening when there is talk of vampires?”

“I think Mr Strange said they were ‘blood-letters’ actually.” Even Mr Lascelles himself cringed at the ineffectualness of this response.

Childermass gave a wry smile as he said, “Vampires, still, in layman’s terms.”  
  
“Ridiculous. No one really believes in such nonsense,” Lascelles smirked, with a small and prideful laugh dancing on his curled lips.  
  
“Is that so?”

Lascelles’ stomach felt heavy, “Don’t tell me you...”

“What? Believe that there are men stalking the earth that we do not yet know or understand? I believe Mr Norrell was one of those men, before you met him, Mr Lascelles.”

“Oh, don’t be coy with me. Magicians are one thing. But vampires?”

“Are another,” Childermass said, “The leap is not too great.”

“You can’t really believe it...”  
  
“There are more things in heaven and earth.”  
  
Lascelles laughed at the quaint reference, surely only half-understood, if at all, “And where did you hear that one?” he asked in pure condescension.  
  
“I am sure, Mr Lascelles, with your London education and lifestyle, you believe you know England and all its corners. But I assure you, you do not.”

Lascelles stirred indignantly, and could not help himself crying out, “How dare you speak to me like that? I ask that you desist, sir, before you regret it.”

Childermass did not fear Mr Lascelles. It was instead Mr Lascelles’ tiresomeness that silenced him. Mr Lascelles, on the other hand, still bubbling away, was becoming quite distracted as to which corners of England he did not know. Sure, he would admit he had never visited Devon or Cornwall, for instance. Looking Childermass up and down, he began to convince himself that there was a whole grand Devonshire gentleman’s guild of which he was completely ignorant. His veins thrummed with a jealousy directed towards a fiction.

A guild of vampires. Night-stalkers gussied up in black velvet and pearl. Pearl crushed and dusted onto translucent skin, covering blue-branched veins on the insides of wrists or the napes of necks. Dusted pearl falling feather-light on the satin inside of a cape, scarlet-red and decadently expensive. Smelling like ash and fruit. Like a deep, red citrus being torn in twain.

“Mr Lascelles? Are you well?”

He did not realise that he was dreaming again. Childermass has returned to his desk in the corner of the room, but had noticed the other gentleman’s expression go vacant, pale, and then passionate.

“Yes, yes.”

Childermass has watched as Mr Lascelles’ skin turned pink and the breath quickened under his neckcloth. Childermass felt the pulse of blood in the man’s neck. A bulging vein below his ear, as loud as his own heartbeat. Or lack thereof.

_Delicious._

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so Childermass is a vampire and this is BBC Dracula’s fault.


End file.
